DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

(18) heedless of the fact that etiquette in those days of growing independence was perhaps the chief outward mark of royal supremacy. She made fun of her Mistress of the Robes, and abolished the custom of dining in public and promenading in state costumes. Clad in a plain muslin gown, with a straw hat, she sauntered through the cottages and workshops of her village, fished in her lake, and superintended the operations of her dairy. That the etiquette must have been ik- some to a young and vivacious woman we can readily believe when we recall its observances, but the moment the queen permitted herself to come down to the level of ordinary persons, she destroyed the reverence and exclusiveness with which her predecessors had hedged round the throne. The intimate gatherings of her friends from which the great dignitaries of the court and leaders of society were excluded, and whose members came to be known as ‘the Queen’s Society,’ were productive of the greatest evil. The bulk of society were frantic at their exclusion, and revenged themselves, with inconceivable treachery and mean- ness, by circulating cruel slanders concerning the queen, ruining her reputation with the people. They spread the wildest stories abroad as to the orgies which were supposed to take place in the shrubberies of the Trianon, and the worst interpretation was